Mac on pitch counts

One of these days I'll collect all Mac's comments on pitch counts and see how they add up to some consistent philosophy. He's of the opinion that pitchers shouldn't throw too many pitches when they are tired. Here's a quote Joe Rutter's recap of last night's Kendall-charged victory:

Perez (5-4) won his second consecutive start even though he exited after five innings having allowed two runs. The departure was hastened by a 0-pitch first inning in which the Marlins took a 1-0 lead. Thirty-five of those pitches came after Perez got the second out.

"Another five and I'd have to go get him," McClendon said. "You're in dangerous territory with that amount of pitches in one inning."

It was 40-pitch first (note to Trib editors), so Mac says here that 45 pitches is the most he'd let a guy throw in one inning.

Pitch counts concern me not so much because of injury but because they indicate the total number of innings the team can expect to get from a starter. The odds that any starter will give the team 3300 pitches are not great so that looks to me like a reasonable expectation for a maximum number. My hunch is that the team should hope to get 200 innings from the rotation anchors. The Marlins got 201 from Pavano last year, the 2002 Angels got 200 plus from Ramon Ortiz and Jarrod Washburn, the 2001 D'Backs got 250 innings from Schilling and Johnson, the 2000 Yankees got 200 from Clemens and Pettitee. To get 200 innings out of 3300 pitches, a starter can't average more than 16.5 pitches per inning. Fogg, Benson, and Oliver Perez are under that bar, but Kip Wells, signed to be the ace of this year's team and often discussed as the ace of next year's team, is way up there at 18.4.

We have to pay attention to that if we're thinking about how to shape this team into a World Series champion. If he can only deliver 180 innings, and we've penciled him in as the ace, that's 20 or 30 innings he's throwing on the bullpen and/or on the back end of the team's rotation. That could be five starts for one of the AAA guys or half a season's worth of work for one of our scrubbier relievers. We'll take quality innings in whatever quantity a pitcher delivers them. If Wells is great for 180 innings, I'm happy, but let's plan for that and recognize him not as a number one guy but as a number three guy.

To get to the point, he's not been great and by paying attention to pitch counts we can get some idea of how to project the rest of the season. In Kip's case, the pitch counts were also a good indicator that something was wrong. Over half a season, when we see a slump in a pitcher's efficiency, that's a better indication that his ERA or won-loss record that something is different.

Another reason to focus on pitch counts is that they give a more accurate measure of a pitcher's workload than innings pitched. All pitches are not created equal but obviously 120 pitches from Kip Wells is probably more work than 80 pitches from Kip Wells. With the smaller parks and the reduction of foul terrority, pitchers have to throw more pitches than their predecessors a generation or two ago. If we focus on pitches as a measure of overall use, then we avoid the trap of thinking four innings are the same here and there, then and now, So there's a lot of good to keeping track of these things.

That said, there's also a lot of simple-minded thought on the use of pitch counts as a measure. Last month, Dan Malcolm posted a rant at Baseball Primer on the subject. It's not super-well written, but it's worth reading as it provides one man's candid overview of the ongoing debate.

Reporters and interviewers looking for an idea for an article or a series of questions might consider asking Mac, Spin, and Littlefield how the team uses pitch counts to evaluate a specific player. They are going to say that they do it differently for each pitcher. Try to get past that and see if you can learn some other rules-of-thumb they are implementing such as the one Mac mentions at the top of this post. Is 45 per inning the limit just for Oliver? If so, why that number and how does it compare to the numbers they have for the other starters?